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Thanks for the invite, jerk. Lol

Sorry for wanting the young guys and star players to be safe and comfortable outthere. I'd rather be a knuckle dragger, past romanizer than someone who is okay, with watering down the game even more so it becomes soccer or dancing on ice someday.

Franzen-Datsyuk-Bertuzzi Nyquist-Zetterberg-Alfredson Cleary-Weiss-Tatar Anderson-Abdelkadar-Miller I feel like something like this gives us the most depth. I don't think Nyquist will instantly make us the best team in the league. But he really is our 3rd most dangerous forward and should be playing at this point. The one thing I question is going for another center. Z and D play better apart. They are both dominate two-way centers. They have played better apart for years now. So they basically went and got a number two center when they should have got an elite winger, via trade or FA or whatever. I think Babcock will figure it out pretty soon.

From what I've seen of HNIC over the years, you're lucky if they mention any non-Toronto teams.

I heard he banged one in with his nose. esteef

What a joke. Should have fired the guy at the end of last year and give your team a full training camp with a new coach. Or give the guy more than 3 games. The flyers are constantly surprising me with their lack of class when it comes to business decisions. Don't get me wrong there are times to let go of a coach, hiring and firing happen all the time, but now this guy has no chance to be hired for the majority of this year and your team has to keep using his system until (if) they put together a new system with the assistant coach who took over. Another head scratching decision by the flyers.

Do you really not see the inconsistency in your logic? You flip flop back and forth between saying that reducing fights would make hockey more dangerous and that it dilute hockey to the point that it is dancing on ice. Your position is so untenable you need to do these mental backflips in order to justify it in your mind. When someone says that removing or reducing fighting would make the game safer you respond that it waters the game down. When it's argued that the integrity of the game will be preserved even without fighting you just come back and say it would be dangerous. The problem is, your scenarios are incompatible. What the "anti-fighting crowd" (soccer moms as you also call them) wants is to reduce unnecessary injuries while preserving the other, necessary physical aspects that are actually part of the game.

I think there' s an awful lot of hyperbole necessary to claim fightless hockey would be dancing on ice.

The Lions play on US Thanksgiving every year. The game starts at 11:30 my time. As a Lions fan who has been legal to drink for over half of my life (won't get into how long I've been actually drinking), I assure you that if there is a kickoff, puck drop, first pitch, starting gun, or any other noise or movement; and this happens on a holiday, weekend, weekday, or other scheduled or non-scheduled event day; then it is perfectly ok to drink whatever beverage you choose, as long as there is an event attached to it. It is now 4:30 a.m. and I have started the dishwasher. Time to drink.

I believe it's called the "Ovechtrick". Look it up.

Seems to me like the big argument for fighting is that it stops the dirty players from being dirty and taking "runs" at your guys. For the moment I'm willing to overlook the fact that fighting has been around forever, and so have dirty players, and as of yet the former has yet to deter the latter. My biggest concern here is rather that the majority of fights don't have anything to do with dirty plays. If you exclude opening faceoff (Tootoo) fights, and fights that occur because of LEGAL (yet still hard) hits, and fights between enforcers who aren't involved in any dirty play (Orr vs. Parros), and fights that break out because other fights are going on (Miller vs. Bernier), or enforcer rematches, then you're left with very few fights where guys are policing dirty play. As Red Wings fans, we don't see a lot of fights. We also all remember Lemieux on Draper, or Weber on Zetterberg, and those things leave a bad taste in our mouths. So it's just natural to assume that things like this are the primary cause of fights. But the sad fact is that most fights have nothing to do with policing the game. There's nothing that noble going on most of the time. Fights happen because they always have, and for the time being they are still looked upon favorably by too many sad, old, apes who can't stop romanticizing the past.

Forget about Tatar Babcock was quoted saying he was looking for more and that's why Tatar played, but he didn't get it from him...Personally I thought he was one of the better players. Makes you question, what Tatar has to do in order to become a regular on this team same for Nyquist? If you have an elite team and almost every position is helt by better players, I would understand it but this is certainly not the case here. Some veterans on this team are just taking roster spots away from future players. Reading the Brunner thread is funny, the DetroitRedWings could need a guy like him. i also thought the problem lays on the Wing not the Center position, when you have two guys like Z and Pasha you better surround them with quality wingers.

Z and Dats together are dominant against everyone they play against. The problem with the Wings is the team we are icing. If we had more talent on this team, we'd be way better. Z-Dats-Abs Tatar-Weiss-Alfredsson Nyquist-Andersson/Helm-Franzen Tootoo-Andersson/Helm/Glendening-Sheahan That team with a healthy Helm, with no plugs like Sammy, Cleary, Emmerton, Miller, sadly Tuzzi....that team stacks up way better against WAY better teams like Boston with 3 scoring lines and a 4th line built to actually shut down the other team, not just waste time as Babcock and Holland's leftovers that become our 4th line. Z-Dats-Abs has 7 points combined in 3 games with Z leading at a point per game pace. The other lines need to step up, but our 2nd line has no consistency cause Babcock keeps putting Cleary on there when Franzen disappears every game instead of Tatar or having the luxury of Nyquist to have Franzen live on the 3rd line against 3rd D pairs where he is actually useful.

Between this and Game of Thrones, I'd say its worth the extra cost on the cable bill

Excellent post thank you. Nuggets like this are reason #1 why I continue to sift through all the bs on LGW.

Canadian Thanksgiving for me. Great way to spend the afternoon!

Why can't you be happy for all us Wings fans in Europe who get to watch a game at tea-time?

Probably came across as more condescending than I meant to but honestly there is no reason to even bring up his play as bad last night. He created offensive chances and made no real defensive mistakes. The goal he was on the ice for he played it perfectly against a pretty good player and Quincey messed up royally. I've actually seen some people say he was one of the wings better players last night and even had him as a star (I think he was solid but not top 3) the only reason people would be saying anythnig bad about his play is because hes getting the Ericcson treatment where everyone hates on him and watches for one little thing he does wrong. Smith played like a second pair dman last night

Z really is a beast... Dats is definitely more skilled but Z is the heart, soul and engine of this team, his hard work and tenacity is just unbelievable. In situations like last night when we're down a goal and need to push to get back he basically carries this team on his back like a true captain and leader!

What game were you watching? Smith was fine out there all night, people call Dekeyser a stud off tonights game and say Smith was brutal. Both played a comparable game its funny how once someone gets a rep around here they cant shake it no matter what. Same thing happened to Ericcson

Not Filppula?

To me this clip somewhat represents both sides of the argument. Getting knocked out cold in no way deterred Matt Cooke from cheapshotting guys. On the flipside, it is satisfying watching him get a beatdown like that. But it was no deterrent. Also, I'll pretty much use any excuse to post this clip because Cooke is such a dirtbag who shouldn't be in this league, even if he's "reformed."

I disagree. In my opinion, Cleary was playing like garbage at a time where he was featured on the top 2 lines (albeit while individuals were injured), and Babcock let him rot there. Could have called someone up, but, nahhhhh

The time for waiting is over. We've been waiting since last year for at least this specific lineup change to be made. Still waiting....

The difference is that at this point Tatar and Nyquist are our best forward prospects since probably Hudler and Filpulla in the mid-2000's, and in the long run one or both of them may turn out to be better. Huds and Flip were also battling to get a spot on a far superior roster than we have now. I don't actually have much against Bert, Cleary, Miller, Eaves, Tootoo, even Sammy. I do have a problem with all of them together, plus Emmerton as well who is clearly not an NHL player. One of Miller or Eaves. One of Bert or Cleary. Emmerton in the AHL where he belongs. We've got a collection of bit-part players - every squad has to have them to fill out their roster in the cap world. Problem is, they're not filling out the roster, they're half the roster, and they're keeping better players out. Bert-Andersson-Cleary may not be the worst line in the NHL but it sure as hell is the slowest. I fear for Andersson without the dynamism of Nyquist and Brunnner Tatar on his wings.